Craig McInnes: B.C. has known for years of plan to import Chinese miners

Craig McInnes, Vancouver Sun10.09.2012

B.C. Premier Christy Clark didn’t mention during her trade mission to China last November that most of the coal mining jobs created by a $1.4-billion Chinese investment in B.C. would be filled by Chinese workers.

Granted, at least in Canada, it’s been a while since all that was required was a strong back, a desperate need of a job and a high tolerance for dangerous and dirty work.

But five years? That’s how long the provincial government has known that a company proposing an underground coal mine near Tumbler Ridge in northeastern B.C. wanted to bring in experienced miners from China as part of its operating plan because of a lack of skilled underground miners here.

As Vancouver Sun reporter Peter O’Neil noted Wednesday, Premier Christy Clark didn’t mention during her trade mission to China last November that most of the coal mining jobs created by a $1.4-billion Chinese investment in B.C. would be filled by Chinese workers. But at least her officials should have known that the rationale given in 2007 by the Canadian Dehua International Mines Group for bringing in miners from China appears to be essentially unchanged in 2012, despite her government’s focus on jobs for British Columbians.

As O’Neil reported, the first of a group of 200 temporary Chinese workers approved by the federal government will be arriving in B.C. in the coming weeks to start work on one of four projects that could provide employment for 1,600 to 2,000 Chinese miners and an estimated 480 to 800 jobs for Canadians.

The company says it can’t find the specialized workers it needs in British Columbia, where there are few remaining underground mines. The federal government, which runs the temporary foreign worker program under which about 150,000 people are allowed into the country each year, agrees there is a labour shortage in mining.

There is also a shortage of jobs in Canada for Canadians looking for work, especially young Canadians who are the most likely to take advantage of high-paying work in the mining industry if there were clear paths for them to do so.

The provincial government has for several years been talking about the need to upgrade trades training and for young British Columbians and their parents to consider apprenticeships and blue collar work as a respectable alternative to university and white collar jobs.

So how did we get to the point when five years after a company announced its intentions to open an underground coal mine, the province has done so little to prepare British Columbians for the potential jobs?

B.C.’s Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell said Wednesday the mining jobs being filled now are only temporary. The 200 Chinese workers are for a six- to eight-month bulk sampling test, under which 100,000 tonnes of coal will be mined.

The bulk sampling program, however, is being done in anticipation of the opening of mines that could have an operating life of 30 years.

What steps has the government taken to ensure that when more permanent jobs become available, that British Columbians, other Canadians or at least permanent residents who will spend their wages here rather than taking them back home are able to benefit?

Bell says the new skills training plan announced three weeks ago contains a significant shift away from traditional training models.

“This particular set of skills is one that we’ll have to build. It doesn’t really exist in Canada.”

It’s true that there is now only one underground coal mine in B.C., the Quinsam mine near Campbell River on Vancouver Island. But there is a long tradition of underground mining in Canada, both of coal and other resources.

Bell says the mining industry has a hard time attracting workers.

But mines in places a lot more remote than Tumbler Ridge have been able to keep working with appropriate incentives. While Canadians have come to accept the need to bring in temporary foreign workers for low-paying jobs that Canadians don’t want, are we ready to accept that highly paid mining jobs are no longer of any interest because the work is too hard?

And while the province has started to squeeze the academic side of universities and colleges to pay for more trades-oriented training, it’s hard to see any plan emerging that is specifically trying to match individual development plans with the skills that will be needed.

While that’s not an easy task, it’s hard to watch high-paying jobs in Canada being outsourced while Canadians continue to settle for less.

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Craig McInnes: B.C. has known for years of plan to import Chinese miners